


Song Without Words

by obstinatrix



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Interlude, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix
Summary: What happens when two people whose relationship thrives on conversation are suddenly denied the capacity to speak?





	Song Without Words

In retrospect, Gark thought he could pinpoint the exact moment the translation software gave out. The look on Julian's face had slid from rapt to confused in a millisecond, right at the apex of Garak's train of thought -- naturally. He would have to write off that carefully constructed parry as a loss, was the absolute worst thing about it all. Of course, Chief O'Brien would have the translators up and running again within an hour or two, but Garak couldn't exactly line up a previously-spouted remark and send it off again into battle, expecting Julian to be as receptive as he might have been, had it hit its mark the first time. No: that comment, however cutting, was dead in the water. Garak resigned himself to the fact. 

It was interesting, though, to discover what transpired between two avid conversationalists when the means of conversation was removed. Garak, unable to speak, felt personally victimised. Over and over, he opened his mouth, made the opening overtures of a sentence, only to remember that to his compnanion, the words meant nothing. He wondered idly how Kardasi might sound to the ears of a naif like Julian Bashir. An abundance of sibilants, he supposed. Federation Standard, which Garak had perused but never properly learned, was oddly flat, thick of vowel and lacking in the consonant clusters that so demarked Kardasi from its sister tongues. 

Still, despite the state of paralysis in which Garak found himself, it was pleasing to watch the young doctor incline towards him, helpless, and vent his discontent. The words were a muddied mess. Garak could not even begin to distinguish them, eidetic memory or no. Federation standard had not exactly been granted a privileged position in the education system of Cardassia and its colonies. But Julian's eyes, so wide and dark, the indeterminate amber-grey colour of smoked quartz, asked his questions for him. _What is going on? What should we do?_ And, latterly, _help me_. 

It felt natural, then, to fold the doctor into his arms, if only to quell the sudden hurriedness of his pulse; soothe his panic. When Julian lent no resistance, but only tipped up his chin, Garak moved on instinct to kiss the underside of the smooth jaw, the skin so impossibly fine and the toffee-gold colour of an unripe rokassa fruit. Julian's eyes fell closed, and Garak let himself admire the fan of dark lashes on brown cheeks as he whispered his desire into the doctor's ear, in the full knowledge that it would never be understood: _my dear, my beautiful one. Would that I could take you as my prize back to Cardassia._

Julian caught his eyes, and his lips parted. Garak distinguished one word from the next, but none of them was anything familiar to his memory. Something and something else. A sentence. The syntax at least was recognisable. 

Garak laid a hand against the side of Julian's face, and felt the doctor lean into it, smooth brown skin against the cool grey of Garak's palm. 

"A song without words, my dear," Garak said, benignly. 

The doctor, all-unknowing, smiled all the same in answer to the look on Garak's face, and turned in his grip to kiss his palm.


End file.
